Waiting
by Night Vale Twerk Squad
Summary: "Her heart sings for the night." Oneshot; a Bubbline fic of gentle variety.


Behind her, the incessant buzz of the television drones on. Muffled; articulate words, rehearsed script reduced to unfathomable syllables strung together in nonsensical slurs. Marceline can still hear the insistent drawl even from all the way outside though- hard not to with her hypersensitive ears. Idly dissecting slurred sentences, trying to make sense of them whenever she can, and is for the most part successful. The TV's tuned to some lame, sappy romantic movie and she's able to understand something like _I'll cross candy cone mountains for you._ Must have gotten to the part where the lead guy professes his love to the lead dame. She belatedly realizes she scoffs.

She's perched on her fence, locks like deep velvet licorice swaying to the soft whistle, hum of the wind seeping in from outside the cave. How long has she been sitting here anyway? Few hours, couple of minutes... She's not sure. It's easy to get lost in waiting, just distracting oneself with pointless things- rubbish script from a corny movie. Never been one to boast about being patient, Marceline, because in all truth she's quite the impatient woman. Reckless, hasty; all that's similar in definition. But she _can _be patient, and that's something many people don't realize. The throb on her rump and the setting cramp on one leg is testament to that.

Stray strands flutter to her face from where she's tucked them behind one ear and she looks right through them, staring wide-eyed and hopeful outside, past those jagged boulders that are the very door frame of her cave's entrance. The sky is a noble's baldachin- dark, as dark as abysses, glimmering with dots of stars like satin catching light. On the back of her neck she feels a subtle shiver, hairs rising. _Ah. _Night. The only time she can really run free, gallivant without the fear of dissolving into ashes in a span of seconds.

Her heart sings for the night.

She's airborne in a second's pass, toes pointed to the ground and hands loose on either side of her, already messy hair spurred further unkempt by the wind that rushes at her the same way she rushes at it. A hovering specter in the sky, speeding through the evening squalls like a ship, uncaring of the breathless scenery below her of the grasslands in the nighttime. In a hurry, it would seem.

One minute; two. The wind calms as she slows, one hand reaching forward to grope the window she can see ahead of her. It's painted pastel- _pink- _like the rest of the castle, or rather the rest of the Candy Kingdom. She smiles at the color, the curl of her lips dripping with mirthful vigor. Her dark sweater seems so out of place here.

The window's hinges squeak when she pushes it open- squeaks again when she closes it. Her footsteps make subtle creaks as she paddles into the tower chamber, supernatural eyes adjusting to the darkness. To her left she can discern the outlines of a vanity; a desk littered with parchments stacked high like castles next to that. She inhales like her dead lungs need her to. _Perfume. _Like... lavender smeared with sweet, sweet candy. Aged sneakers squeal small and soft as she pivots, meanders across the room past the vanity and the untidy desk, knees sinking next into a soft mattress as she settles upon it. She hikes herself along the bed, one knee unknowingly dragging upward one corner of a strewn blanket.

Her fingers bump and elbow and in the gloom, someone makes a sound.

"Marceline?"

Marceline hums, inquisitive, a single fang peeking out from behind her lips as she smiles. The wiggling thing wrapped in sheets under her stretches within its canopy of blankets and clambers free, its hands blindly searching for the vampire. Her own lifts off the mattress and catches one of those clumsy appendages and grasps, gently, fingers winding into the valleys between the other's digits. She hears a sound- a contented hum- and she's pulled lower.

There are lips on hers, the kiss broken off briefly by rumbling, delighted laughter from them both before it carries on. They part again, and then don't, and again, and again...

Marceline is laughing. Bubblegum is grinning. Her crinkled purple eyes gleam in the void, and Marceline thinks they are so beautiful.

The blankets whip then still as the two of them burrow underneath it and into each other. Jeans scrape exposed knees, sneaker tips lightly bumping bare toes; upon that dark sweater of hers are hands whose complexion, Marceline knows, is much lighter than her own. There's a nose on the underside of her chin and breaths on her collarbone.

"You're early," Eyes like cuts of polished amethyst regard her and she gets lost in them. Wanders for a moment in those brilliant purples like a child. "It's not midnight yet."

Marceline's fingertips tease the back of Bubblegum's neck. She thinks of waiting- of the fence around her house, the stars on the sky, the TV she left on and that stupid romantic movie still running... and she smiles, burning chest vibrating with a quiet laughter. "I guess I just couldn't wait any longer."

And like her heart sings for the night, it swoons for the princess she gets to spend it with.


End file.
